DA slams govt spending on ads
2009-08-13 18:00
Cape Town - The Democratic Alliance on Thursday criticised the department of correctional services for spending half-a-million rand on full-page newspaper advertisements while already severely short of funds.
The department admitted in a written reply to a parliamentary question that it had paid R187 000 for an advertisement in the City Press and R340 000 for one in the Sunday Times.
It said placing the advertisements in the newspapers were necessary to ensure opinion makers, stakeholders and citizens were informed about its "crucial programmes", outlined by Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula in her budget vote speech to Parliament in June.
"Correctional Services is obligated to inform the stakeholders, and the public particularly, on the department's planned use of the allocated budget of over R47bn over the three years.
"It is a handful of people that was able to listen to the minister's tabulation of how the allocated budget would be used to improve the efficacy of the corrections system and to reduce re-offending rates."
The department argued that the benefit of stimulating debate about the minister's plans "cannot be compared with the costs of the advertorials".
It also confirmed it had overspent its budget by R483m in the 2008/09 financial year.
Substantial
DA MP James Selfe said the advertisements did not serve the stated purpose and amounted to a waste of taxpayers' money.
"It is an indictment of the department that, in spite of the fact that its own budget is already overspent by R500m, it saw fit to pay a substantial amount of money for two adverts that constituted nothing more than promotional fluff for the minister."
Selfe said the financial situation the department found itself in "means it needs to practice prudence, not extravagance".
A scandal broke out earlier this year when it emerged the wife of former correctional services minister Ngconde Balfour was renting a R30 000 a month house on a golf estate, despite having an official residence at her disposal.
- SAPA